Week 7

This was another very eventful week for me at Selinsgrove Area High School.  As you all know, I'm teaching on a block schedule so this was the week that I started teaching a second class.  This calls for more structured time management, learning new names, and becoming more familiar with course content.  

Aside from that I have been proceeding with my two personal finance classes, and all has been going well there also.  I am still having to learn the material prior to teaching it, but to a large extent I just need a refresher.  My classes seem to be more interested in this material than they were originally when I started with the Federal Reserve System, which makes perfect sense because the material I am in the midst of now more closely pertains to their individual lives.  This includes topics like budgeting, banking, check writing, etc.  

I had to address a few classroom management issues this week, but nothing that was too dramatic.  My classes have been going well for the most part, and there has never been a time when I have felt like the effort I put into it wasn't worth it. 

If there was one thing I could go back and change, I would have made a more conscious effort to go out of my way to individually get to know each student in my new classes prior to this week.  I had been going around and talking to each one, asking what their plans were after high school (especially since it's a career prep course) and trying to find individual characteristics of each student.  However, I was not as thorough as I would have liked to been so now I have a little catching up to do.

One thing that was most beneficial to me this week was trying a few new strategies in teaching.  I developed some in-class assignments so that students could "learn on their own" with my guidance.  This worked even better than I expected, and is something that I plan to use with appropriate balance throughout the rest of the semester.  I have found that I tend to want to "have my hand" in what the students are doing, yet most of my students tend to learn best from being held responsible for new content by giving them guided assignments (that correspond with my instruction) to do in class.  This tied in well with my teaching and I was happy that I utilized this approach.

Overall, another good week.  If nothing less, we are just about half way home :) Good luck to everyone else out there! Keep pluggin' away.

Week 6

Although this week started off with an in-service day, it was still just as busy as every.  I had a very good experience sitting in on the APL workshop on Monday, (which you will all hear more about later) where I had many refreshers on classroom and time management techniques, as well as many new tips and methods.

Tuesday through Friday were relatively normal days, and were very busy as usual.  Everything is continuing to go well with my classes for the most part, and I'm getting more comfortable with the material and the students.  It's very interesting and educating to interact with the students as they get to know me better, and continue to open up with me more.  I've come to find that some of my students live in foster care, struggle with issues of alcoholic parents, live out of relative poverty, and then there are others who have entirely different struggles.  It is ever-evident that as teachers we have to be able to individually and sensitively reach all of them without leaving anyone out. This is for me, as with all of you I'm sure, the biggest challenge. I'm reminded of the following quote from Donald D. Quinn:

"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance,  had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job" 

It is an on-going, rich experience for me though, and I'm really taking a liking to teaching.  Needless to say, there are still a few things I would change about this week.  One of the major areas that I'm continuing to try to find balance before/after each lesson is, planning an adequate amount, but also not trying to fit too much into a lesson.  I often try to get a large amount accomplished being that there is so much potential material for a subject like Personal Finance, (especially these days,) but in the process I have lost some students in the past, which I'm trying to avoid.  In this respect, I might trim down some of the content so that I could go "deeper" in a few small areas.  This is nothing major, and I feel as though it will come more naturally the more that I teach.

The most beneficial aspect of this week was probably a combination of attending the APL workshop as well as trying a few new techniques in my classes.  These techniques include the way that I ask questions, the way I probe for answers, and also the general way that I try to involve the students in each lesson.  It is certainly a great learning experience for me and I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks.

Week 5

Another good week is in the books.  It was a very active week, as most are these days, and once again there were many things I learned.  

Last week we had a good start into our new section on the stock market, and i continued with the content on Tuesday.  However, it seemed like I never got into a"flow" in the lesson and it seemed to be somewhat dry at times, which I didn't like.  Everything went well, in that there were no problems or embarrassing moments, but it just wasn't what I would call a "Good Lesson."  So, that caused me to rethink some of my approaches and recognize that preparing, and then preparing again, is always essential, even when you feel like you're getting into a groove.

That being said, the one thing I would have changed this week, is to see to it that I had a better, more captivating lesson on Wednesday.  Part of this could have been due to slighter-than-usual planning due to time crunches, and part of it could have been trying to fit a large amount of content into one lesson.  So, despite it not being an A+ performance, I still benefited from it. Chalk it up to another lesson learned.

What was most beneficial this week is a couple of approaches I took to implementing the stock market game that my Personal Finance classes are participating in.  I assigned their groups (which some were O.K. with and others were not; though I held my ground none the less), and I saw to it that I got plenty of one on one time with each group.  Also, my learning center that I made has plenty of practical rules, guidelines, and tips for everything that the students have the most questions on concerning the stock market game.  It was great to be able to direct them to the board when they had a question on the rules, processes, or questions pertaining to a variety of things.  This took a large amount of demand off of me, and helped them learn how to locate and apply information without it being spoon fed to them.  Also, I started using the Google "Define: " command quite a bit this week.  If you're not familiar with that, check it out - it's very beneficial.

Overall, like I say, another good week.  There was much accomplished, but still much to do.  And so it goes...

Week 4

Week four was a good week overall.  Monday started out with finishing up some presentation projects I had my students start on last week, and overall that went pretty well.  Wednesday we started a new section on the stock market (in my personal finance classes) and I think we got off to a pretty good start.  The students are interested and seem to be looking forward to starting the stock market game this upcoming week. This Friday, I took my personal day for a coaching clinic in Hershey, so my week was cut short, (which is always nice).

Looking back, if I could change anything, I think I would have been a little more prepared for the presentations on Monday.  Our projector has a nice habit of turning off unpredictably, and although I did manage to print out some sides for the students as a back up, it was sort of done at the last minute and it was a little bit of a scramble to have it done in time.  This reinforced the fact that over-planning is almost always necessary.

The most beneficial part of my week was using things that the students are interested in to tie into the lesson. For my first lesson on the stock market I used a clip from Batman Begins for the intro where Bruce Wayne and the CEO of Wayne Enterprise engage in a conversation about "going public" and the selling/purchasing of shares. This fit in nicely with my lesson throughout the whole hour that I taught.  Also, I had students talk about the clothing they wear and the stores they shop in, and used this to expose them to finance.google.com and nyse.com.  This all seemed to work well.

I'm continuing to look forward to the following weeks, and continue to enjoy getting to know the students better.  They are opening up more with me and seem to enjoy getting to know me better as well.  However, I am still feeling like I'm pushing mud in my "lunch class." It seems now matter how much the first class loves the material, the second class is always half asleep and doesn't want to be there. I have a feeling this is an uphill battle I'll be fighting all semester.  Aside from that, I couldn't ask for more up to this point.